Are you happy?

Ask yourself that right now, at this very moment. That question, it’s so important yet so hard to answer

ARE YOU GENUINELY HAPPY RIGHT NOW?

I started thinking about this question thanks to Bo Burnham‘s new comedy special Make Happy, which is free to watch on Netflix right now. At the end of the show Bo poses a very somber question, in song form which I’ll link here for you all.

So, on a scale of 1 to 0, are you happy? Like truly happy. Happy with how your life is running, happy with your career, happy with your partner, happy with your family, happy with your house, happy with your appearance, happy with your etc, etc.

If you told me, after I’ve asked those series of questions, that the answer is yes then I’d call you a liar.

No one is genuinely happy, if you think you are then just think about that one thing that niggles you. It could be the tiniest thing, your fringe might not go the way you want it. Your favourite socks might have a hole in them. No one is truly happy, because if we were life would be boring. Unhappiness gives us something to conquer, something to fight and something to beat and when we do it we can raise our hands high and be proud that we conquered it.

Then the next unhappy thing rears it’s ugly head, you just managed to dump your shitty boyfriend, then suddenly boom, you fall over and break your arm, or you get fired, or you rip your jeans. It could be big or small. Life always throws the unhappiness your way so you can fight back and be happy again, then it’ll throw one more at you so you can tackle that.

Life makes us unhappy so that we have goals and so that we can achieve and better ourselves. Because otherwise what’s the point? If you were accomplished and living the life of your dreams you’d get bored, because there’s no more hurdles to jump.